I shall not trouble the reader with a particular account of this voyage, which was very prosperous for the most part.  We arrived in the Downs on the 13th of April, 1702.  I had only one misfortune, that the rats on board carried away one of my sheep:  I found her bones in a hole, picked clean from the flesh.  The rest of my cattle I got safe on shore, and set them a-grazing in a bowling green at Greenwich, where the fineness of the grass made them feed very heartily, though I had always feared the contrary; neither could I possibly have preserved them in so long a voyage, if the captain had not allowed me some of his best biscuit, which, rubbed to powder and mingled with water, was their constant food.  The short time I continued in England, I made a considerable profit by showing my cattle to many persons of quality and others; and before I began my second voyage, I sold them for six hundred pounds.  Since my last return I find the breed is considerably increased, especially the sheep, which I hope will prove much to the advantage of the woolen manufacture, by the fineness of the fleeces.

ADVENTURES IN BROBDINGNAG

I.  Among the Giants

Having been condemned, by nature and fortune, to an active and restless life, in two months after my return I again left my native country, and took shipping in the Downs, on the 20th day of June, 1702, in the Adventure, Captain John Nicholas, a Cornishman, commander, bound for Surat.

We had a very prosperous gale till we arrived at the Cape of Good Hope, where we landed for fresh water; but discovering a leak, we unshipped our goods and wintered there; for the captain falling sick of an ague, we could not leave the Cape till the end of March.  We then set sail, and had a good voyage till we passed the Straits of Madagascar; but having got northward of that island, and to about five degrees south latitude, the winds, which in those seas are observed to blow a constant equal gale between the north and west, from the beginning of December to the beginning of May, on the 19th of April began to blow with much greater violence, and more westerly than usual, continuing so for twenty days together; during which time we were driven a little to the east of the Molucca Islands,[16] and about three degrees northward of the line, as our captain found by an observation he took the 2d of May, at which time the wind ceased, and it was a perfect calm; whereat I was not a little rejoiced.  But he, being a man well experienced in the navigation of those seas, bid us all prepare against a storm, which accordingly happened the day following; for a southern wind, called the Southern monsoon,[17] began to set in, and soon it was a very fierce storm.

[Footnote 16:  They could not really have been driven to the east of the Molucca Islands without passing Sumatra, Java, Borneo or other islands.]

[Footnote 17:  Monsoons are winds that blow part of the year in one direction, and the rest of the year in the opposite direction.]